Author Archives: Darci

CSA, hooray! Chapter 6

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Scotch Hill Farm didn’t disappoint this week:

  • leaf lettuce mix
  • snow peas
  • green bush beans
  • bright lights Swiss chard
  • little leaf cucumbers
  • Japanese cucumbers
  • zucchini
  • patty pan squash
  • radishes

First off, yay for patty pan squash. I discovered these super cute little squashes last year, and am excited to cook with them again.

Second, I don’t know what to do with all of these radishes. I slice one up on every salad, but we still have an abundance. My brother Daren recently told me that he eats a good five radishes a day with hummus. I’m just not sure I can get on board with that.

Third, and last, one day in and we’ve finished off the green beans, a third of the lettuce and one of the leaf cucumbers. What to use tomorrow …

Swiss chard success

Posted in Vegetables by

I finally did it. I managed to successfully cook Swiss chard as a side dish — not as a dessert!

I followed this Food Network recipe for Sautéed Swiss Chard, but used about half of the melted butter. (I didn’t drag out the scale, but I probably had about half the Swiss chard, too.) It was delicious, and super easy to make.

As I always am when sautéing greens, I was amazed at how little there was when I emptied the pot. Thankfully, I’d suspected that Swiss chard would be too kale-like for Mike’s liking, so also steamed some broccoli for him. But really, I couldn’t have been happier to have it all to myself.

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Cookbook love: ‘Mickey Mouse Cookbook’

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My first cookbook came into my life on the day of my first holy Communion. Walt Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Cookbook” was the perfect present Mickey Mouse Cookbookfor the kid who was always “helping” in the kitchen. Truly, some of my earliest memories are of me standing on a chair pushed up to the counter, watching my mom make pie crust and emulating her with my own miniature rolling pin and small ball of dough.

I fell hard for this cookbook. Not that I was the hugest Mickey Mouse fan, but it was a cookbook, it was hardcover, and it was mine. You can still see the dots I penciled next to the ingredients of Mickey Mouse’s Sugar Cookies. Once, my mom came home from work to find me at the stove, making Winnie-the-Pooh’s Baked Custard — incorrectly, with all of the ingredients tossed together in the pot at once. I obviously didn’t read the recipe all the way through before diving in, as Jiminy Cricket clearly advised in the front-of-the-book Kitchen Rules.

My junior year at Michigan State, when I moved into a house off campus with seven friends, these “favorite recipes from Mickey and his friends” came along. Oh, did my roommates mock me. They simply couldn’t see past the Pinocchio’s Pea Soup with Cheese Cracker recipe, which calls for just a can of condensed green pea soup and a cup of cheese crackers. If only they’d dwelled instead on those Kitchen Rules, specifically No. 10: “and remember to clean up when you’re finished in the kitchen if you want to be welcome there again!”

I’ve weeded my cookbooks many times over the years, but the “Mickey Mouse Cookbook” remains — even though I haven’t cooked out of it since grade school. But thumbing through it today, I suddenly have a hankering for some sugar cookies. À la Mickey, of course.

CSA, hooray! Chapter 5

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Our holiday weekend was a whirlwind, with a wedding and a last-minute barbecue invitation, so I’m just now processing what exactly was in our CSA share this week:

  • radishes
  • turnips
  • snow peas
  • cucumbers
  • leaf lettuce mix
  • onions
  • basil and oregano

Plus, I stopped by the farmer’s market at Lincoln Park High School on Saturday morning, and picked up fresh peas and raspberries from two great Michigan farmers, as well as bangers for the grill. It looks like we’re in for a tasty week!

Have veggies, will travel

Posted in CSA, Mom by

I’m spending a few days at my parents’ home in northern Michigan. Rather than let the vegetables from last week’s CSA share rot in the refrigerator, I packed them in a cooler and took them with me.

I can’t say they received all that warm of a welcome. My mom likes to plan meals when the whole family is up to the lake, and my bok choy, turnips, photo copysnowpeas and the like didn’t really fit in. (She did use my radishes in her tuna macaroni salad and the leaf lettuce to dress grilled hamburgers. And I added onions to one morning’s scrambled eggs.)

But tonight, my final night here, I had no choice but cook everything else I brought or haul it back home. And that simply wasn’t going to happen.

My dad fried bass and pike he caught on Lake St. Helen — a family tradition. My mom broke out baked beans, along with her macaroni salad. I roasted the turnips and kohlrabi in vegetable oil, since I couldn’t find any olive oil in the house. Surprisingly, they went over well, much better than the bok choy, Asian greens, snow peas, garlic scapes and broccoli I sautéed in butter. (Again, no olive oil.)

p.s. Enjoy the view I’ve had this week!

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Photo by Bailey Smith

CSA, hooray! Chapter 4

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This week’s share has a few holdovers from earlier boxes, but lots of new veggies, too:

  • leaf lettuce mix
  • turnips
  • radishes
  • snow peas
  • Asian greens
  • basil
  • cucumber
  • fresh goat cheese

I have to admit that last week’s turnips are still in the refrigerator, along with the kohlrabi I bought last Saturday at the farmer’s market. A bastardized coleslaw is surely in our future.

The only disappointment: No garlic scapes! I may hunt some down tomorrow so I can make a bean dip recipe I came across. Stay tuned.

Garlic scapes look odd, taste delicious

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IMG_5660I first noticed garlic scapes at the farmer’s market last summer. They’re hard to miss — bright green and curly and, well, seriously odd looking. But none showed up in our CSA box, and my plate was full (literally) dealing with all of the new vegetables that did.

But when I opened last week’s share, there they were. And I had to figure out what to do with them.

Googling yielded this recipe for Garlic Scapes Carbonara, on the Sarah’s Cucina Bella blog. Although I was nervous that using raw eggs to make the sauce would result in pasta with scrambled eggs instead of creamy carbonara, I decided to give it a go.

Wow, am I glad I did.

It’s a quick dish. Chopping the garlic scapes took the most time, because they’re so curly. I should’ve tackled them first, before I started the bacon instead of while it was frying.

Next time I make this recipe, I’ll also:

  • Add fresh peas, as Sarah suggests. I planned to buy some at the midweek farmer’s market, but didn’t make it.
  • Use pancetta or real bacon instead of turkey bacon. I only had turkey bacon on hand and, while the end result was fine, I know real bacon would’ve added more flavor. Plus, the turkey bacon left the pan dry, so I had to sauté the garlic scapes in olive oil instead of bacon grease.
  • Use a bigger pot. The pot I typically boil pasta in was a little cramped when stirring in the egg.

Still, delicious!

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‘It’s Pimm’s o’clock!’

Posted in Drinks by

Four summers ago, I spent a warm and sunny afternoon on the south bank of the River Thames, at London’s famous Anchor pub, enjoying a Pimm’s cup — the quintessential English summer drink. I’m not sure if it was the mysterious gin-based liqueur mixed with lemonade, strawberries, cucumbers and mint, the breezy Katie Fforde novel I couldn’t put down, or just being on a solo adventure in such an amazing city, but that afternoon is one I look back on often and smile.

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Days like that simply can’t be recreated. But now that Pimm’s is available in the United States, my favorite drink can. And when I saw garden cucumbers and Michigan strawberries at the farmer’s market last Saturday, I knew it was “Pimm’s o’clock.”

Unfortunately, Mike doesn’t partake in Pimm’s. He claims the concoction, which ends up being brown with stuff floating in it, looks like “a garbage disposal backed up.” When we first started dating, he refilled my glass and tossed in his beer cap to further demonstrate his point. Yum.

So, I made a pitcher (a “jug of Pimm’s” in London-speak) the other night for my friend Kim and me. While the view from our back porch doesn’t exactly compare with the one from the patio of The Anchor, it was still a lovely night. And a lovely drink.

So, this is rhubarb

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Seems basic, I know.

But until last summer, my rhubarb experience was limited to only store-bought jam. I’d never cooked with it. So when our farm promised rhubarb in a weekly CSA box, I was excited.

“Rhubarb” in hand, I looked it up in the Food Lover’s Companion, my go-to guide for vegetables unknown to me. Don’t eat the leaves — they’re poisonous, it said. It’s all leaves, I thought, but … OK. After I trimmed the leaves, I was left with the tiniest red stalks, hardly enough for the recipe of rhubarb crisp I’d found. Still, they went into the pot with a lot of sugar. (Thank God.)

The finished product, with its oatmeal, cinnamon and brown sugar topping, was so pretty that I took it to my newish in-laws’ house. I’ll admit it, I was damn proud.

Until a couple of weeks later, when I was wandering through the farmer’s market and saw some “rhubarb” at a stand. Only the sign above it read “Swiss chard.”

Hmm.

Just so you don’t make the same mistake I did, this is Swiss chard. (Which, as it turns out, will work in a “rhubarb” crisp in a pinch — if the recipe calls for enough sugar.)

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CSA, hooray! Chapter 3

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It’s the third week of our CSA share, and we’re still in the green.

Today’s box contained:IMG_5633

  • Sweet Valentine romaine lettuce
  • Bibb lettuce
  • Swiss chard
  • turnips
  • bok choy
  • garlic scapes
  • early onions
  • leaf lettuce mix
  • broccoli of some sort

I’m most excited about the garlic scapes, which I’ve never had and have no idea what they even taste like — although I assume they’re garlicky. I plan to search some recipes tonight.

Mike wasn’t so excited to see another bunch of bok choy. I’m not sure why, as I ate last week’s bunch all by myself. I love the crunchiness and how easy it is sauté them in a little garlic and olive oil.

The only conundrum is the turnips. Really, turnips? I thought they were extinct.